U

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U 21st letter of the English alphabet and a letter included the alphabets of in several w European languages. Like f, v, w and y, it was derived from the Semitic letter vaw (a name meaning hook). The Greeks adopted vaw into their alphabet as upsilon. The Romans made two letters out of upsilon – Y and V (see Y). They used V both as the vowel u and the consonant v (originally pronounced like the English w). In English u is a vowel representing many different sounds. Chief among them are the short vowel sounds in bun and bull and the long vowel sounds in burr, flute and lunar. In British English, it is pronounced as if it had a preceding y in certain words – dune, assume, astute. The letter may be silent after g or q (as in guilt and liquor) or it may modify these letters to make the sounds gw or kw (as in language and liquid). The letter q is virtually always followed by u.